Charles Lindbergh beside Spirit of St. Louis before take off (below) on May
20th from Roosevelt Field in Garden City, Nassau County, New York.

Jacqueline Cochran stands in front of the Canadian-built F-86 Sabre jet, in which
she became the first woman to break the sound barrier. Cochran flew over Rogers
Dry Lake, California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour. Among her
other aviation firsts: She was the first woman to take off from an aircraft carrier, the
first woman to reach Mach 2, the first pilot to make a blind instrument landing and
the first woman inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame.

1962

       

As the world’s first airline stewardess, war heroine, and aviation pioneer Ellen
Church (above) created a new and exciting profession for young girls of the
twentieth century. While working as a registered nurse in San Francisco, Ellen
was employed by Boeing Air Transport (BAT), the predecessor to United airlines
in 1930. she soon organized the pioneer group, "Sky Girls" (pictured below).The
eight girls, all registered nurses, were hired as stewardess on their flights for a
three-month trial run. It was the beginning of what other airlines thought at the
time to be a bold experiment.

The “Sky Girls”

The Boeing tri-motor

Floyd Bennett (left) pioneer aviator piloted the explorer Richard E. Byrd (right) on the first successful flight over the North Pole on May 9, 1926. For this feat both Bennett and Byrd received the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor. Floyd Bennett Airport in Brooklyn, N.Y., was named for him in 1931.

The Fokker tri-motor airplane used by Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett

Richard Byrd (at left) and machinist Floyd Bennett (at right), receiving the
Medal of Honor from president Calvin Coolidge (center).